The Blue Ashwinder
by Beeezie
Summary: Scorpius comes across an old home remedy for Spattergroit, and enlists James to track down its key ingredient: a blue ashwinder's eggs.
If there was anything Scorpius Malfoy really hated, it was being put on potions duty.

He knew that he was still a junior Healer, which meant that his place was essentially to ask "how high" when a senior Healer told him to jump, and he usually didn't mind that as much as other people might have.

His friend James, for instance, would have likely thrown a fit - if James had the temperament to be a Healer at all, that is, which he didn't. James was far too excitable and never seemed to be happier than when he'd just been carted in from facing down a mountain troll.

Scorpius, however, was deliberate. He was capable of holding his tongue and doing what he was told. It was the Slytherin in him. He kept his eyes on the prize, so to speak.

That was what he told himself, anyway.

[[MORE]]

It was difficult to fully suppress his resentment, though, as he bent over the small cauldrons placed in a long row on a wooden table that was so sturdy Scorpius was fairly certain it was bolted to the ground by some spell so powerful they'd only be able to remove it by cutting the floor away. It certainly hadn't responded to any of the spells he'd tried to use to just push it backward a few feet as he tried to manuever a very large and unwieldy cart that was similarly impervious to magic.

The stool he was resting his leg on was too short to really be appropriate for either chopping ingredients or adding them to the simmering black liquid. In a more charitable mood, he would have accepted that as being a fairly straightforward way to make sure that Healers didn't cut corners for the sake of comfort; right now, as he was nearing the end of a ten-hour shift in the potions room, he was quite ready to be done with this entire debacle. The walls were painted a sterile off-white that lacked all personality, and the lights were so bright he knew at least two Healers who had to take potions to prevent migraines before _and_ after shifts making potions.

Cleanliness and order were important, obviously - they were making finnicky, potentially life-saving potions.

He just wished there was a little color and personality here and there. He'd even tried to paint a small green snake onto the wall six month before, and been rewarded for his efforts with the paint soaking into the wall and coming back to spell out the words, _Lives depend on you. You should be working._

Whoever had first created this room had absolutely no sense of humor.

Once he'd bottled and labeled his potions, he made a beeline for the break room, hoping he would be able to retrieve his sweater, bid goodnight to the attending Healer, and leave without any fanfare.

Unfortunately, when he stuck his head in Esme Banister's office, the look on her face told him that leaving was not in the cards just yet. Her eyes were piercing and clear, and before she even had the chance to speak, he stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. "Yes?"

The corners of her mouth twitched. Esme was the sharpest, most no-nonsense woman Scorpius had ever met in his life, and from her carefully smoothed back dark hair to the tapping of her right foot on the floor as she scrutinized him, he could read the writing on the wall:

It was time to dust off the mirror in his pocket to tell his girlfriend that he was going to have to cancel their date after all.

"Three more cases of Cerebrumos Spattergroit have been reported from Wales," she told him in a clipped tone. "A fourth has come in here; we have his family quarantined now. We need to get out _ahead_ of this, and _I_ know that our potions could be more effective. I'd like you to glance through the old volumes in the library, to make sure we aren't missing anything." Scorpius glanced involuntarily toward the door, and she added, "Tonight."

He knew better than to whine, but he wasn't pleased. "I just got done with a ten hour shift," he reminded her. "I had plans tonight."

Her eyebrows rose a few centimetres. "Excuse me?" she asked, in a tone that reminded him quite pointedly of how supportive and understanding the entire unit had been when his girlfriend had landed herself in a coma - and how much they'd paid him to sit by her bedside when he should have been working.

He swallowed any further protests. "Nothing."

To Esme's credit, she did not actually say, "That's what I thought."

It was in his fifth hour of research that he came across something interesting. It was in a very, very old dusty book that he'd pulled off the shelf as much out of curiosity than any real expectation to find something genuinely useful - it seemed like he'd been sent on a wild niffler chase so his department could claim that they'd _contributed_ as anything else, anyway. The first floor certainly kept well away from anything that didn't directly involve an animal-based injury in general - he suspected that Esme had gotten a stern lecture from one of the directors about not being a Team Player.

And, predictably, it had been passed off to him, as the most junior and most expendable Healer on the floor.

It was on page 276 of 535 that he stopped skimming the headings. There was something eating at him - it was like having a spell on the very tip of your tongue. He flipped back a few pages, and at the very bottom of page 272, there it was:

 _ **A Serum to Cure Cerebrumos Spattergroit**_

 _Two years ago, in 1355, Cerebrumos Spattergroit reached our shores - probably carried by French mudbloods from the continent, for it is known that Spattergroit prefers to strike the pure of blood when many options are before it, leaving them deceased or disfigured and often rendering any future children squibs. Through careful study, however, we have found that the following treatment will protect any purebloods from the disease (it is uncertain whether mudbloods will also benefit):_

 _Take 2 eggs of a blue ashwinder,_ freshly frozen _, and boil in a solution that is equal parts toad slime, salt water, and essence of Murtlap. After stewing for six days, the fourth under a half-moon, add a sprig of_ freshly-cut valerian, three salamander eyes, and additional fresh _water. Simmer for exactly seven hours, and bottle promptly._

Scorpius looked up from the book, frowning. Ordinarily, he didn't think much of these old home remedies, and there were some absurd ones when it came to Spattergroit in particular - he dimly recalled reading about a "cure" that involved tying a toad's liver around your throat and standing outside during a full moon. However, there had been a few other "cures" outlined in this book that had seemed like they may have been precursors to successful cures, including Essence of Dittany - and when he stopped to think about it, it seemed vaguely plausible that an ashwinder's eggs could have such an effect - though he had no idea if blue ashwinders even _existed._ Weren't ashwinders grey?

He picked up a quill. Better safe than sorry.

There was a rap on the door just as he finished copying out what the passage had said. He looked up to find one of his coworkers peering through the doorway.

"You know," he called to her, "stepping inside this room isn't going to make Esme stick you with this shit for the next sixteen hours."

Haruko's chin-length dark hair fell across her face as she leaned further over the threshold. "Probably not," she agreed, "but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not risk it."

He sighed, shoved his creaky wooden chair back, and stalked over to the doorway. "What is it?"

She dangled a piece of parchment in front of him. "This note just got delivered for you."

The official seal of the Ministry of Magic had been stamped onto the note to hold it closed, and he recognized the handwriting on the opposing side of the parchment immediately. "Thanks," he said, taking it and slitting it open.

 _S -_

 _Just got off a long shift. Heard that you'd had one inflicted on you, too. Meet for drinks at Leaky? I'll be there regardless._

Scorpius glanced at the clock. It was just before 1am - which, on the bright side, meant that he could finally get the hell out of the hospital. If drinking to commiserate could be involved, so much the better - it wasn't as good as the date he'd had planned with his girlfriend, of course, but it was a damn lot better than nothing.

When he walked into the Leaky Cauldron twenty minutes later, he spotted his friend at a table against the far wall. The pub was predictably quiet - the early morning hours on a Monday weren't exactly a peak time for drinking. Anyone with any sense and a job with halfway reasonably hours was probably home in bed - the only other people in the pub were the bartender and a middle-aged woman scribbling away in the corner booth as he nursed a beer.

James looked up when Scorpius collapsed into the seat across from him. "Good morning." He had a broad smile across his face.

Scorpius let his head fall onto the table and groaned. "I hate my job."

"Nah, you don't. Here, I already got you a beer - you don't have to work tomorrow, do you?"

"After _sixteen fucking hours?_ No. Thank _Merlin._ Do you?"

James Potter shook his head. "Just got back from two days out in the field. They give us a day or two to recover from that. So, what kept you at work so late? I thought Al told me you had a hot date tonight."

"Yeah, well, I was supposed to." Scorpius picked his glass up and took a deep gulp. "But then just before I left, my boss told me I needed to research fucking _Spattergroit._ It's not even _in_ our department."

James made a face. "Sucks, but I'd have more sympathy if I hadn't just spent two days trying to track down another damn acromantula nest. At least you've slept in your bed recently."

"Well, did you find one?"

"Depends on your definition. On the bright side, only a few adults to stop us from torching the thing. On the downside, burning baby murder spiders still feels a bit like burning non-murderous spiders when they scream." He shuddered. "I know there's no real shot at reforming them or anything, but… it just makes my skin crawl."

"I think I prefer my dusty date with some books."

"You would." James glanced over at the middle-aged woman. "We think we've got problems. Look at her jacket - Wimbourne Wasps fan. They just got hammered in the European Cup quarter-finals tonight - 450-100."

Scorpius winced. That was a humiliating scoreline by any standards, but it was particularly bad in an international competition. Then the whole continent was paying attention to your mistakes.

"I have a question." He tried to make the question come out casually, and didn't quite succeed. "Is there such a thing as a blue ashwinder?"

James lowered his glass to the table. "Sorry?" There was a crease between his eyebrows.

"Is there such a thing as a blue ashwinder? I know they're usually grey, but…"

Now the other man was studying him closely. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, there was this book…"

* * *

 _Author's Note: This was written for the Current Events challenge being run by TreacleTart over at the HPFF forums. The prompt was to use a current event as inspiration for a fic. As someone who's fairly obsessed with medicine, I decided to use the flurry of articles last year about an old English remedy that seemed to be effective in killing MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant staph infection that can be very dangerous and is unfortunately getting more and more common thanks to overuse of antibiotics._


End file.
